Is Your Business Held Together with Duct Tape?

I love duct tape. I love WD-40. I love Liquid Nails. I once remodeled a bathroom with Liquid Nails and lots of muscle.

Duct tape comes in very handy around my house. It can hold everything together and WD-40 can make things move easier. Households are a great place to use duct tape. But, should you hold your business together with duct tape or Liquid Nails? Should you grease the wheels with WD-40? Maybe not.

Think about your daily processes and standards. Do you find yourself under the gun and patching things together just to get things done? Do you find yourself placing a piece of tape here? There? At least until you shore it up with cement or super glue? In the words of Dr. Phil, “How’s that working for you?”

I do find myself doing this at times and find that although these are great products for holding things together – it is only a temporary fix. I am working on putting some stronger standards in place. These standards include: coaching with Stacy Brice, an accountability partner – Kathy Watkins, an assessment for potential clients, and a mastermind group. These commitments are helping strengthen standards, achieve goals, and get rid of the duct tape!

I could call these my own version of WD-40 – smoothing the processes and getting rid of the gunk that makes the processes stick. I am seeing progress – which is a good thing, of course. The goal is to recognize the gunk or duct taped process and grease the wheels with WD-40.

What in your practice can use less duct tape?

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Twitter Stalking

Twitter is the newest ‘thing’ out there in the virtual world. You hear about it on Fox News, NBC Today, Jay Leno, Good Morning America and more. I am a big fan of Twitter. It has helped me forge relationships that have helped me when I have had issues with Typepad, looked for information on Infusionsoft, and pass on business to others. I have even scored an email interview because I Tweeted about Skype.

I have set up Tweetbeep Alerts for key words, two of which are virtual assistant. The goal was to keep a finger on what people were talking about regarding virtual assistance, how they used VAs, and any questions or tips that might pop up. However, I am seeing lots of Twitter stalking when people mention, ‘I am looking for a virtual assistant’ or any inference that they might need some help. They immediately get followed by virtual assistants offering their services. Now, I have been guilty of this, until I saw a trend of what was happening. Now, I simply reply (which you can do without following them) and refer them to AssistU or Stacy Brice.

I find the Twitter stalking to be detrimental to the virtual assistant industry. Why? To me, it has the feel of someone standing on the street corner just yelling “Hire me!” “Hire me!” I am not sure that this is the best face that our industry wants to put forth on Twitter.

If you are a virtual assistant or someone who is interested in collaborating with a virtual assistant, how do you feel about this?

Good and bad about using Twitter to reach potential clients and how you like to approach them.

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Focusing on Daily Endeavors

One of my goals this year is to go through the book, Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach as she intended her readers to go through it. I have had this book for many years and have managed to read it on a sporadic basis.

Why do I want to do it this year? My goal is to simplify my life. Get rid of things, do more with less – this may mean I have less things to clutter my house, attic, and thus – less to dust!

Yesterday’s reading was excellent advice on restoring serenity to our daily endeavors. Sarah tells a brief story about a woman who begins to brush her teeth, only to spot her unmade bed out of the corner of her eye. So – she starts to make her bed while foaming at the mouth because she starts another task before finishing the first one! Do you find that you do this?

Women are often excellent multi-taskers – especially if you have been a mom. Bouncing a baby on one hip, fixing dinner with the other, while herding the other kids or talking to the husband. Phew! I remember those days and I appreciate the fact that I could do this when young.

I know now, that things really do need my full attention and then some in order to excellent, quality work or give someone my full attention.

My goal? To recover my sanity (okay, this may be a lost cause), complete one task at a time, concentrate slowly on each task, and gain an inner peace and serenity.

Sarah states that you will, indeed, “accomplish all you set out to do and need to do with much more ease, efficiency, pleasure, and satisfaction when you merge mind, body, and spirit with the task at had.”

Best of all? Serenity here I come!

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